Is America Turning Into Europe?

Last night, Daniel Hannan appeared on Fox News to speak with Sean Hannity about his new book The New Road to Serfdom: A letter of Warning to America. As a member of the European Parliament for eleven years, he’s seen first hand the onerous policies bankrupting his continent which have contributed to the global recession. Yet remarkably, Hannon explains that if America continues to replicate the same insolvent entitlement European programs that are undoubtedly failing across the Atlantic – such as health care, social security, and welfare – the U.S. government will probably be bankrupt in less than a decade.

In order to improve the global financial system, Hannan argues, leaders in Washington should begin by getting their own fiscal house in order because the world economy relies heavily on the prosperity of the United States to grow and create jobs. In Europe, however, members of E.U. Parliament continue to recklessly borrow, spend, and push loans on countries that are unable to meet their fiscal obligations in the first place. Hannan admonishes Americans, instead, to elect officials who will actually work to reduce the size and scope of government spending before it's too late.

To make matters worse, the current president campaigned in 2008 on a “fiscally responsible” platform that lambasted then-President George W. Bush as “unpatriotic” for spending $4 trillion during his two terms in office. Now, after implementing a nationalized health care system and a failed stimulus package, Barack Obama has surpassed the spending levels of his predecessor in less than three years. Unfortunately, after watching this interview, it’s abundantly clear to me that if we continue to abandon the founding principles our nation was founded upon, the question is not whether we will become a European-style democratic socialist state, but when.